In the Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS), which is a third-generation (3G) mobile cellular system, CPICH stands for Common Pilot Channel, known and used in UMTS and some other CDMA communications systems. In WCDMA FDD cellular systems, CPICH is a downlink channel broadcast by Node Bs with constant power and of a known bit sequence. Its power is usually between 5% and 15% of the total Node B transmit power. Commonly, the CPICH power is 10% of the typical total transmit power of 43 dBm. Signal quality in 3G is often assessed using one of two signal to noise ratio measures, called received signal code power (RSCP) and EcNo. Given that there is no CPICH in LTE, the equivalent is Reference Signals (RS) that are spread in time and frequency. The measurement that are used are RSRP for the power of the RS and RSRQ for the quality of the RS. The technique described herein could be used with respect to RSRP and RSRQ instead of the CPICH.
Also, in UMTS, a random access channel (RACH) message used by a user equipment (UE) to request access to a cell. To request access, the UE sends a RACH message on the uplink channel to the base station. While the 3G term RACH is used herein, a RACH can be understood to mean any attempt to access a cell, including the equivalent message in LTE (also a RACH message) or 5G.
Various means are known for configuring a cellular base station. However, the majority of such means are not dynamic in nature and require manual and/or static configuration of the cell.
Two measures of UMTS cell quality, Qrxlevmin and Qqualmin, are broadcast by the cell. Since increasing these values can effectively shrink the cell, this can be used as a simple way to control the effective size of a cell. Q values can be adjusted without cell reboot. However, in some cases this is insufficient to adequately ensure cell suitability for users in range of the cell.